Amtrak drops Clippers sponsorship

Amtrak is distancing itself from the Los Angeles Clippers after the team’s owner was caught on tape making racist remarks.

The passenger railroad, which operates as a private company but is partially funded through taxpayer subsidies, said in a statement Monday its sponsorship of the NBA team “expired at the end of the regular season a few weeks ago.” Amtrak is one of a string of Clippers sponsors to drop their team sponsorship since Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s comments caused an uproar over the weekend.

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“Amtrak believes the language used is unacceptable and is inconsistent with our corporate belief to treat everyone with integrity and dignity,” the company said. “As with any sponsorship advertising, some assets remain in market — to that end we are diligently working to remove all sponsorship assets. Moving forward, we will continue to monitor the situation as we look to make decisions about 2014-2015 sports marketing sponsorships.”

Virgin America, State Farm and CarMax have also announced they would be dropping sponsorship of the Clippers.

“It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you’re associating with black people,” Sterling tells his girlfriend in the audio recording, which was first obtained by the gossip site TMZ. He later adds: “You can sleep with [black people]. You can bring them in, you can do whatever you want. The little I ask you is not to promote it on that … and not to bring them to my games.”

The remarks have sparked protests from Clippers players and calls to remove Sterling as owner of the team from New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and others.

It’s not clear how much Amtrak paid to sponsor the Clippers. Five Amtrak routes — all of them money-losers — start, end or travel through Los Angeles.